Australian anti-IS fighter to be deported back

Canberra, Dec 4 (IANS) Australian anti-Islamic State (IS) fighter Ashley Dyball has been charged as a terrorist and will be deported back home from Germany, the media reported on Friday.

Dyball, from Brisbane, has posted on social media that he is being sent to the Eisenhuttenstadt detention centre and will be on a flight back to Australia in two days’ time, ABC reported.

“If anyone has a good German lawyer, help a brother out been charged as a terrorist,” he wrote on Facebook, under his alias Mitchell Scott.

The 23-year-old has been fighting against IS forces with Kurdish militia called the YPG in northern Syria, but was apparently travelling through Europe during a break from the battlefield when he was detained.

His family has urged the federal government to grant an amnesty under the tough foreign fighters legislation to those battling the IS.

A spokesperson for the department of foreign affairs and trade said it was providing consular assistance “to an Australian man detained in Germany”.

Australia is on high alert for attacks by radicalised Muslims, including those returning home from fighting in the Middle East.

In June, it was reported that another Australian man, Reece Harding, was killed fighting with the Kurdish YPG militia group against the IS in Syria.